What is a phobia?
Phobias are persistent and intense fears of a particular:
object
person (like a doctor or clown)
situation
activity
If you have a phobia, you may experience severe anxiety and panic attacks when you’re:
exposed to the object or situation you’re fearful of
thinking about the thing you’re afraid of
anticipating an encounter with the item you’re scared of
Very light "tiny things" phobia. Spiders, insects, bees… Can’t have them close to me. I start panicking a bit. If I concentrate a lot and close my eyes, I can sit still for bee/wasps/etc. flying close to my face (= where I can hear them).
Another common one, claustrophobia. It’s not always quite clear what triggers it, for example I normally have no issues with being tied up or sleeping under my weighted blanket, but then someone sitting on my legs can suddenly trigger it and push me into panicking, feeling like I can’t breathe. Seeing people go into tiny spaces, or worse, get stuck in tiny spaces makes me feel horrible, imagining me entering some space like that gives me shivers.
I don’t even know what to call my final one, fear of falling? At a harbor, where you usually have no guard rail, I can’t walk close (within 2-3m) of the border for fear of falling in. It’s exactly the same as if I were at the top of a mountain, despite the potential fall being only about 1m into water here. This again triggers in a minor way when I see other people walk close. OTOH, with a guard rail, everything is chill.